Aerial robots

We're trying to make the most of robots that
fly. We're studying a range of challenges, from the fundamentals of
giving robots the intelligence to fly well, to their integration
and exploitation for novel applications.

Challenges

Future aerial robots have to deal more intelligently with
uncertainty. For example, flying in a city exposes you to
unpredictable, turbulent air flow, which is particularly
troublesome for very small aircraft like Micro Air Vehicles
(MAVs). If you're
flying indoors to survey a damaged building, say, you have to deal
with unexpected obstacles. In both scenarios, you've probably lost
your GPS
reception, so the aircraft needs to track its position and
surroundings using its own on-board sensors. And, of course, all
the computers and sensors have to be lightweight so they fit on the
aircraft.

Technologies

To tackle these challenges, we bring to bear a range of
technologies:

Control systems, including robust and fault tolerant
control

Motion planning, trajectory optimization and their inclusion in
predictive control